A writing workshop with Warren Stoddard, an April Writer-in-Residence with The Community Library at the historic Ernest and Mary Hemingway House and Preserve.

The workshop begins with a brief craft talk on confidence, instinct, Hemingway’s iceberg theory, and the art of distilling lived experience into resonant prose. From there, we’ll step beyond the room—weather willing—for a short wander, an invitation to notice light, texture, fragments of overheard conversation. Participants will then spend twenty minutes shaping a paragraph or two from these fresh impressions, allowing image and instinct to lead. Then we’ll gather to workshop pieces offered by those who wish to share. We’ll close with a brief discussion on how character can be incorporated into these settings—and how this practice of watchfulness, compression, and courage might extend beyond our time together.

Warren Stoddard was born and raised in the Hill Country of central Texas. He is currently an MFA candidate at San Diego State University. His research focuses on Hemingway and McCarthy, analyzing the relationship between human conflict and literature. Stoddard is the author of a novella, “No Birds in Yesterday,” and a short story collection, “A Good Place on the Banks of the Euphrates.” His short work has been published in literary magazines around the world, where it has been recognized as Notable Literary Nonfiction in The Best American Essays: 2021, nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and won the Gates Thomas Award for Fiction. He is a recipient of the Presidential Graduate Research Fellowship and the Prebys Poetry and Creative Writing Award at San Diego State.